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Music

Linux as A Musician's OS? 309

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-there's-no-protools dept.
lazyeye writes "Keyboard Magazine has an in-depth article about the state of music production on Linux. While it does introduce Linux to the average musician, the article does get into some of the available music applications and music-oriented Linux distributions out there. From the opening paragraph 'You might think there's no way a free operating system written by volunteers could compete when it comes to music production. But in the past couple of years, all the tools you need to make music have arrived on Linux.'"
Slashdot.org

Submission + - The Eight-Hour Day: An excuse for poor planning?

Submitted by
athloi
athloi writes: "On a technical writing mailing list, insane deadlines became a controversial topic when it was suggested that working more than eight hours a day encouraged higher-ups to take advantage of that extra time when scheduling projects. This causes a spiral into more work with less time, and causes burnt-out workers. On every job I've ever had, I have found that without the meetings, politics, and goofing off, what I needed to do could get accomplished in three hours. Would we all be happier and more productive if we worked less but harder? If we eliminated more boredom and created a more playful, more challenging workplace, might we get less of the bloatware and other signs of burnt-out employees that currently plague technology? I wanted to Ask Slashdot for some feedback from the experienced developers and writers here."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Cyber Homeless People

Submitted by
alberion
alberion writes: "In Japan a new social class has emerged. People who are not unemployed, but can no longer afford a place to live. Their solution? Living on cyber cafes."
Security

Canadian Coins Not Nano-Tech Espionage Devices 412

Posted by CmdrTaco from the reality-is-always-funnier dept.
Necrotica writes "An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year. The odd-looking — but harmless — "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP."
Role Playing (Games)

Beating WoW At Its Own Game 383

Posted by Zonk from the shadow-of-the-collossus dept.
The BBC has up a short piece on the hopes of game developers and investors to 'beat World of Warcraft'. Representatives for the upcoming Age of Conan, recently-released Lord of the Rings Online, and Star Wars Galaxies all discuss what it's like competing in a post-WoW world. Funcom game director Gaute Godoger has a point when he says, "The industry so needs competition to World of Warcraft ... We need other strong games that can make people understand that there's more to it than WoW." The article discusses some of the features each of these games offer that differ from WoW, and theorizes a bit on where the MMOG genre will go next.
Windows

Submission + - Vista vs. XP Game Stability and Performance

Submitted by
boyko.at.netqos
boyko.at.netqos writes: "HardOCP does a side-by side comparison with a battery of games to check stability and framerates in Windows XP and Windows Vista. In addition to the lowered framerates in Vista, they had stability issues in Need for Speed: Carbon and Prey. From the article:

As you can see, some games fared better than others with the new OS. For some titles, especially Company of Heroes and Need for Speed, we saw dramatic framerate discrepancies. What's more, both of these titles have recently released patches! Other titles showed a slight, but essentially negligible difference, such as BF2142, World of Warcraft, and Prey. Really, there was only one instance where Vista was able to pick up a few more frames than XP — World of Warcraft at greater than 90fps, where the human eye can't even see the difference. To see this overall trend against Vista is very interesting and makes us wonder as to the cause."
Communications

Submission + - Fring support for SkypeOut Unlimited

Submitted by phtb0y
phtb0y writes: Fring says it now supports "SkypeOut Unlimited" in the USA. I use Fring on my Nokia E61i and received an email this morning from Fring support. Apparently we can now enjoy making calls via WiFi/EDGE/3G using Fring and SkypeOut unlimited for $29 per year. This previously was not possible as Fring calls were routed via the UK and SkypeOut Unlimited was restricted to calls originating from US/Canada IP address space. Fring says they have some servers stateside now and it should be possible to use this service. Fingers Crossed!
Provided by Intel

Vendor vPro/CentrinoPro & Manageability 42

Submitted by Josh_Intel
Good Day Slashdot community... My name is Josh, I'd like to introduce Mike, Jeff & Chris. For the next 2 weeks we'll be online to discuss more about Intel's business clients - vPro, previously launched and Centrino Pro, which launches soon. As we're sure you've heard, one of our key features is Intel Active Management Technology which an IT shop can really apply to some of the seemingly intractable management and security problems that drive us nuts. Stuff like patching powered-down sys
Debian

Submission + - Making Ubuntu Usable

Submitted by
mikemuch
mikemuch writes: "ExtremeTech has posted a tutorial on making Ubuntu usable. It includes stuff like changing the startup music, background, fonts, icons, and colors, as well as navigating the Nautilus file manager — on both PCs and Macs."
Security

Submission + - Mystery behind Canadian spy coins revealed

Submitted by Exp315
Exp315 writes: Remember those stories that surfaced last year that defense contractors travelling to Canada had received Canadian coins with embedded radio transmitters in them? Apparently the coins used some kind of advanced nano-technology, according to initial reports. Well, it turns out that the "advanced nano-technology" was the anti-wear coating on the red poppy centres of the special coins released by the Canadian mint for Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day). The coins looked so unusual that it raised some suspicions! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20070507.wspycoins0507/BNStory/National/home

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